0:00

all right Isaiah welcome to True Hope cast I really appreciate your time today thank you so much for coming on to the

0:06

show how are you and what is going well I'm I'm doing well thank you uh thank

0:12

you for having me I'm excited to to be on and share share some of my addictions so uh what is going well

0:19

um well my health as well and that's always something to be thankful for absolutely now that's a super positive

0:25

but I appreciate it again but let's just jump straight in I'd love to give everyone an idea of like who you are and what it is that you do if you wouldn't

0:31

mind sharing please yeah I'm a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner in the United States and uh

0:38

I work in addictions I I've been doing addiction medicine for the last six years uh anything from uh pill addiction

0:44

heroin addiction cocaine uh more recently in the last two years I've been doing alcohol and pornography addictions

0:51

interesting so what kind of LED you down that path from you know you said so you said that you are a psychiatric mental

0:58

health nurse what's the what's the pathway to that and did you get led into addiction because of this like some

1:05

um just like personal interest how did that how did that kind of come about yeah so I was a emergency room nurse for

1:12

years and our hospital had a psych unit uh attached to it so uh in the ER you'd

1:17

get a lot of people wanting to detox and a lot of people with Mental Health crisis uh so I had a lot of a lot of

1:24

experience with that and I I continue my education become a nurse practitioner originally in Family Practice

1:29

and I transitioned as soon as I finished my program I was like I don't want to do Family Practice you have to know

1:36

everything about everything like I need a sub specialty so addiction job came up I was like you know what I I have a lot

1:42

of experience with with the addicted patient you know I I can I can relate to

1:47

them it's uh I I find as many it has a stigma to it so The Stereotype of an

1:54

addict that people have that and one thing that one of my uh colleagues said

1:59

um one time that kind of stuck with me is we're just a couple of bad decisions away from being on the other side of

2:04

this like it doesn't doesn't necessarily mean they're they're horrible people or moral failing so that stuck with me and

2:10

so I transitioned to addictions in uh 2016 and that led me down the road to

2:16

get further education uh being board certified in psychiatry very cool got a couple of questions

2:21

about that but I'm gonna just I just want us to kick off with what is an addiction can you just lay that down for

2:28

us please yeah so I have my own addict my my own uh uh definition uh and and I

2:36

have like the Merriam-Webster's uh official definition which kind of matches uh but basically doing something

2:42

that's harmful to you and not being able to consistently stop and that that's

2:47

that's kind of the definition I use if you want to go to the official official definition it's a compulsive chronic

2:54

physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance Behavior or activity that is harmful physically

3:01

psychologically and socially typically having well-defined withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety irritability or tremors

3:07

so uh kind of same perfect Okay cool so you

3:13

mentioned in your story there that when you were an ER nurse you mentioned that addicts were coming in asking for help

3:19

is that a common place for people who don't know where to go they come into the emergency room like asking for help

3:26

that sounds serious yes yeah so uh there's that is because addiction is

3:32

pretty well uh overlooked in general uh in medicine

3:37

um it's getting it's getting more and more popular uh but it there's hard to find places and when somebody's ready to

3:44

quit they're ready to quit now and a lot of times they just wait list for two weeks or a month uh weightless and

3:50

depending on the substance they're withdrawing from it is an emergency so like a cocaine heroin addicts

3:56

mathematics they feel like they want to die when they when they were drawing but they're they're not going to there's no

4:01

medical reason that they would they would die but alcohol withdrawal and Benz and like uh Xanax or

4:07

benzodiazepines people have that from those withdrawals so those are emergency room visits you need to go to get

4:14

properly withdrawn from those because there is a threat of death wow and traditionally like you know

4:20

you're in the states so let's talk about the US right where where to addicts traditionally go because let's say like

4:27

if they're on their own and they want to they need help they're probably in a position where they are let's just say like not

4:35

stable they're like you know they they need they need help they're frantic you know having to ask for help in a

4:41

situation they're probably like in and out of the actual substance itself so where traditionally do people go where

4:48

should they go like where have we kind of like misled maybe those individuals

4:53

on like what they can do is can you tell us about that yeah and that that's kind what the Public's misled is the

4:59

emergency room's a place to go and I felt always I felt bad because the people are wanting help but our job in

5:05

the ER is to rule out emergencies and if you're not having an emergencies there's not a whole lot we can do so I've always

5:12

felt bad like turning people away um there is uh in the US there's a national

5:17

um there's a substance hotline uh I believe 2011 will also get you there

5:23

um were you looking for help there's inpatient centers and there's uh so the addictions and psychological problems go

5:29

hand in hand uh so so there's dual diagnosis centers and that's kind of the place where I got started uh where

5:35

people have chronic anxiety bipolar schizophrenia and they also have an addiction to whatever uh and then they

5:43

go hand in hand so there's in the US there's different uh addiction facilities one some are just for

5:48

addictions other are have the Dual diagnosis interesting how has addiction care changed in in your

5:57

experience working in medicine because obviously our understanding and you say

6:02

like I asked you about the definition and you've got your definition which is probably a combination of your experience and your education and it's a

6:10

big topic and it's nothing's like solid there's no like we don't know it's a general public or my friend's got an

6:16

addiction they need to go through this pathway you know like it would be great if that information was available to us so we can support people in the moment

6:22

because very much like a day an hour a week is a big period of time for a person who's addicted to something right

6:29

so how how has that changed through through your years of of being

6:35

in medicine uh what one thing we're really trying to change and it has changed is the general Public's view on

6:42

addiction so uh typically traditionally it was a moral failing like you're

6:47

addicted to something because your morals aren't good enough you should just stop and since and since then it's

6:54

it's kind of accepted knowledge that this is more uh

6:59

both a psychological and medical condition both so the first time even as

7:05

a nurse the first time I saw this I was a little skeptical like alcoholism is genetic and I was like

7:11

are you serious like uh come on because I wasn't raised that way I mean that's just that's that's the culture and I

7:18

heard it explain to me like this you know you and I same height same weight same everything you drink a beer get a buzz like this I drink a gear beer get a

7:25

buzz like this a little higher well who's likely to drink again well the guy whose body metabolizes alcohol in a way

7:33

that it releases more dopamine and that's genetic and that's then that has and sure there's there are some outside

7:40

factors some trauma abuse that those also coincide and mental health codes

7:45

and sides there but there is a genetic uh factor and that's that has really became more accepted in the medical

7:52

field that's really interesting it just makes me think about that

7:58

there's obviously the genetic pace for most diseases right but then like why

8:04

does that end you know what's going on in that person's life what's their childhood experience what's going on with them now like that leads them to

8:10

require or really need that higher dopamine hit right like yeah we could potentially be exactly the same person

8:16

but like what's going on for you what's going on for me like I just might need that that dopamine hit that hit of happy

8:23

that just like distance away from like what's going on in my personal circumstances so yeah like it's

8:29

understandable that we've been missed we've been misled and it's misunderstood and like we're learning all the time and

8:35

we barely know much about the brain considering how vast it is so I think there's some understanding there in

8:41

regards to sure how this kind of like all works because it's so unbelievably complex you know we're going to have to

8:46

take genetics into account we have to take everyone's individual circumstances into account it's like you can't create a one protocol for that so it's very

8:54

very tricky it's kind of like with diets and trying to create like a meal plan or a meal pyramid or a meal plate for the

9:00

whole population of a country like you know it's everyone's so wildly different and you know in their ability to get

9:06

Foods different so I totally understand how it can be super super tricky and there's some there's some like key

9:12

things that we miss out that most people within the public misunderstand about addiction you led on to the idea that

9:19

about morals and I think there's certainly like there's definitely individuals that probably still think on

9:27

that on that way because they've not been addicted well they've not been consciously addicted to let's say like

9:32

one of the more common substances or something like that so they don't have a connection with a addicted individual so

9:38

how well how can we start to begin to um create a little bit more

9:44

understanding and you know maybe um empathy for individuals who who are

9:50

who are addicts yeah so this one really this this statistic here really kind of

9:56

changed my view on alcoholics so you think of an alcoholic you think of the bum on the street right that's the

10:01

stereotypical alcoholic well studies show that a person addicted to alcohol

10:07

has a higher IQ than the average population and that just blew my mind like that

10:12

that's not normal that's not what I was told to think but and I see this I see this all the time I

10:19

treat professionals uh um Physicians attorneys and all kind of police officers nurses pharmacists all these

10:26

professionals who have a drinking problem and they now why why is it

10:32

affect the people with higher IQs it's really kind of to be no nobody really knows exactly needs more studying done

10:37

but my theory is uh people with a higher IQs have higher higher jobs like you know anesthesiologists carrying people's

10:44

lives in their hands every day well they get off of work they want you to want to relax right well alcohol does that

10:50

alcohol will will relax you well six months later they now need six beers

10:55

instead of one beer to relax and then a year from now it's 12 Beers and just to get that relaxed to shut their mind off

11:02

so that that way they can turn off work and turn on their their their home life so uh if you look at it that way you're

11:08

like man that's that that could be me that I'm only a few bad decisions away from being the heroin addict because uh

11:15

it it can it can affect just just about anybody yeah that's really interesting you talk

11:20

about that that IQ piece and the the high earning jobs and I just think about the stress that comes of those jobs and

11:27

the hours that come with those jobs I mean I don't think our biology is really designed to do let's say a 12-hour shift

11:32

or you know working for 16 hours for you know like a busy lawsuit or something

11:37

you know the body just is not really equipped to deal with that type of an output without having significant

11:45

um you know parasympathetic stress relieving activities that we would call maybe like healthy like you know

11:51

movement and nutrition and meditation things like that yeah they're not usually the go-to because they've people

11:56

have been up so high it's very difficult to maybe think about meditating to bring that down people

12:01

certainly do it but as you say like you've got that short those people have a short period of time where they're

12:07

able to like not have to live in that stressful personality and having a

12:12

substance and using chemicals to do that it would make sense that especially people with with money would be able to

12:19

access you know beyond alcohol to be able to to obtain that so yeah I

12:24

think we've seen through like Hollywood and through movies and through TV shows how that certainly happens

12:30

um so that's a very interesting piece and that's that's just a very simple piece of information that might allow

12:35

people to you know connect with an alcoholic a little bit a little easier absolutely

12:41

can you tell us a little bit about the link between addiction and neurotransmitters you mentioned dopamine

12:48

so I think it's just a strong connection that people should be aware of because we all have neurotransmitters and we all

12:54

have this let's say we all have the potential to become an addict of something and neurotransmitters is

12:59

something that we all have in common so if you wouldn't mind bringing us uh bring us awareness to that that would be

13:05

great yeah so um there with with addictions dopamines is the feel good neurotransmitter it makes you feel good

13:11

and we're supposed to have it you know you hug your family members that dopamines release that's a good thing so

13:16

but but with substance use and even non-substance addictions like pornography gambling uh there's there's

13:23

something called dopamine down regulation so you get these high bursts of dopamine release so

13:29

um we're talking about things that people are addicted to coffee is one of the most addicted substance in the world

13:34

80 of the population in the world is addicted to coffee and our caffeine I shouldn't say coffee it includes tea and

13:40

stuff um thing but I would love to see it until you see the statistics about pornography because I have some on the

13:48

U.S like the U.S has approximately 91 of men have watched porn in the last month

13:57

that doesn't necessarily mean they're addicted but that's still kind of a lot uh for and how many of those are

14:03

addicted right and then out of that in that that same month 60 of women have watched porn so it's not just a man's

14:10

thing anymore but um so let's say porn for example uh you watch porn you get a

14:15

huge bursts of dopamine right where your brain likes that so it creates a new Pathway to think about doing that

14:20

activity again because it liked it and then you have some pavlovian effect you know I opened my computer I watch porn

14:26

so all of a sudden my brain says computer porn it makes that link so now you have some intrusive thoughts anytime

14:33

you open your computer intrusive thoughts about porn so

14:38

um back to the dopamine down regulation you get these high amounts of dopamine so your brain is not wired it's not

14:43

supposed to be on dopamine all the time so what does it do it starts churning off The receptors for the dopamine

14:50

receptors so that way it can absorb less dopamine and then that triggers a

14:55

depressive episode so you you start to feel less happiness through throughout the day throughout

15:02

normal things hugging your family members you're supposed to get dopamine well well two reasons one your body's

15:09

used to really high Spike of dopamine so hugging your family member that's only a little dopamine that's like that's

15:15

nothing and then two your dopamine receptors get turned off so there isn't

15:20

as much dopamine being absorbed so that's how depression uh addiction leads to depression secondary to this dopamine

15:27

down regulation yeah it's quite remarkable in regards to how when you you know you look at it

15:33

from a biochemical standpoint the fact that we know our body's so smart in regards to downright down regulating

15:39

receptors to reduce the potentiality of of having that high and then you know to

15:46

reach the same levels we're going to have to like flood it even more right so it's a really really vicious cycle and

15:52

it's very yeah I just always think about the fact that we've got this like incredibly beautiful biology that the

15:59

evolution of it is just so far behind our cultural evolution of access to so

16:06

much stimulation whether that's pornography or even just TV or cell

16:11

phones scrolling Instagram absolutely and then we have all these substances and you know we even have like you know

16:17

alcohol is a really interesting topic because alcohol is just like this very powerful

16:23

um chemical that we've all just agreed is okay in the society that you can have access to every kind of anywhere I mean

16:30

I I lived in Sweden for a period of time and it's really kind of like one store you can buy it but then growing up in

16:36

the UK you can just buy alcohol absolutely everywhere and it's just like that's deemed it to kind of be an okay

16:41

in society but I would I don't know the stats but I'm sure it's the absolute destroyer of worlds when it comes to

16:47

substances because of that availability and it's just it's just interesting that our

16:52

um our cultural evolution is just so far surpassing what our body can actually deal with and I wonder if that

16:59

understanding and that piece of Education could help support people to understand that what I'm going through

17:04

is is kind of abnormal for my biology and maybe it's not just my my my fault it's not just like my lack of morals

17:11

it's not my lack of um self um self-ability to you know reject these things or just stop it's

17:18

actually our biochemistry kind of inside of us and when we can't see see here

17:23

smell touch or taste things kind of tough to understand but yeah we should definitely have some more empathy for

17:29

ourselves and under other individuals because yeah it's kind of just our biology doing doing what it does this

17:35

remarkable biocomputer and then yeah it's it's really yeah it's I'm sure

17:40

you've seen so many lives just absolutely kind of destroyed when it comes to even alcohol something that's

17:46

just so commonly available right and socially acceptable yeah yeah it's quite quite remarkable what are some of them I

17:52

mean spoken about alcohol we spoke about a few things what are some of the more common addictions that you've dealt with within

17:58

like within the medical community especially working in the ER um and then specializing further more in

18:04

addiction like what are the more common things that that you see and has that changed in the last couple of years with

18:10

covid pandemics lockdowns and all this like you know psychological stuff that's kind of going on for people yeah so

18:17

really turn of the century cocaine was the drug drug to have there was a lot of cocaine uh mid-2000s about 2005 2010

18:25

heroin took over as the drug um because of the ease of access uh it

18:31

was just shipped in from Mexico and even Canada through China from China through Canada and the overdose rates just

18:37

skyrocketed the the city I'm in was was in the top five

18:43

um cities one year I think it was 2016. uh for overdoses and and uh one and the

18:49

the number one city was just about two hours away from us they had um they had mobile morgues

18:56

um so semi trucks for morgues because all the morgues were full because there was just people overdosing so much and

19:03

and so heroin was one of the most dangerous so opiates are the downers and those are the most the lethal uh like

19:09

cocaine mathos or stimulants so it's let when you overdose you're less likely to die from left less lethal overdoses so

19:17

then the pandemic pandemic is when pornography and alcohol addictions skyrocketed so you're at home alone

19:25

right so you can start drinking at noon instead of wait until dinner so have a

19:31

glass of wine all right and then stress with work so you just start start doing that more often same thing with

19:36

pornography the Insidious thing about pornography is nobody needs to know with

19:42

alcohol eventually somebody's gonna find out or anything smell it on your breath you're acting a little goofy slurring your words but with pornography nobody

19:49

needs to know and there's no outward signs of it but it still causes that depression it

19:57

causes a whole whole slew of other things so yeah the pandemic really spiked Spike alcohol addiction and

20:02

pornography addiction I don't know if you've got an answer for this or if you want to answer this question I just don't know and it just

20:09

kind of popped up for me because you were talking about like the error of cocaine and the error of heroin and I

20:14

just think about like obviously there's always going to be a black market that's going to be in the legal trade of these of these Goods but I don't know about

20:20

like the origins of the cocaine kind of back in the day and then heroin and how

20:26

that can flood a population so easily without the intervention of the

20:32

government and the legal institutions so I kind of Wonder like who owns these who

20:37

owns the like the land in these countries of origin because there's so much money to be made from drugs right

20:42

and right you know I think arguably some governments you know I wouldn't say they're they're good boys and girls all

20:49

of the time you know so do you know much about like the the origin in the history history of those kind of drugs flooding

20:55

the population so swiftly yeah so there are some interesting books about it and of course Netflix has a series Pablo uh

21:02

talks about Pablo Escobar main era in the 90s and early 2000s about how he he

21:08

basically he was making more money than the country the whole country of Colombia was

21:14

um but uh so that's interesting but then there's there's another book uh called Dreamland that kind of explains how uh

21:21

heroin the heroin epidemic started and how um because traditionally heroin or

21:28

morphine was made from poppy seeds right you would have to grow the poppy plants to produce opium strain it down to

21:33

morphine well now it's all synthetic it's all synthetic um same thing with fentanyl fentanyl is

21:39

really The Killers about 100 times stronger than morphine and um so

21:45

um it talks about most of its most of this person's research was done from Mexico these labs in Mexico is bringing

21:53

it over and um and they had a whole system set up where they would be Distributing this

21:59

and they all they knew the laws so they would only carry enough so it wouldn't be a felony

22:04

so if they were to get pulled over got arrested it wasn't a felony that would get locked up overnight deported back to

22:10

Mexico and then another person would replace them and they had everything all figured out and this this book is pretty

22:16

neat about how it explains that but um that that's uh that's an interesting concept yeah I'm gonna try and learn

22:23

more before I start wrapping my head around those like this it just it just I can't believe that like someone like Pablo Escobar can get so rich without

22:30

some inside support do you know what I mean yeah the government wasn't completely naive like no yeah it's it's

22:37

just that's a whole interesting Dynamic but we'll move on from that because that's you know I'll uh I'll try and convince my wife to watch Pablo with me

22:43

as some you know as a documentary series it is good um right now in the in the US does the

22:49

government and public health services do a good job with addiction support in your opinion

22:55

oh that's a good question it's a hard question to answer uh they're doing a better job I think that would be a fair

23:00

statement okay because good is subjective and but it's definitely have taken some Leaps and Bounds so the main

23:06

medication used to so like we said heroin is really the most lethal drug uh out there so uh which is like heroin

23:14

lace with fentanyl the main medication used to treat that is suboxone also called buprenorphine

23:20

there was some limits on it so uh each so if I were to want to prescribe

23:25

Suboxone I would have to go it will get my DEA license which I have then I have to go to an additional class to just for

23:32

Suboxone and then a limit to me to 30 patients for the first year 100 patients for the second year and then 275 for

23:39

every year after um so that kind of limited how how many people have access to health and of

23:45

course there's a bunch of conspiracy theories about this but I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist

23:50

um but they did away with that they did away with that and it's it's it's now becoming uh I can prescribe unlimited

23:58

number so it's just like and it's the same thing with Percocets if I wanted to prescribe Percocets to a thousand people

24:03

I could but if I wanted to prescribe the treatment for Percocet addiction I could only treat 275. interesting but now

24:11

that's changing uh now so I'm happy to see that uh the you know people in the

24:16

in general medicine now are more open to addictions because of and it's sad to

24:22

say that so many people have to die for for people to take a look and say hey this this is a problem we need to learn

24:29

more about it and it's being taught more in medical schools more continual education a lot of state licenses

24:34

require opiate education to renew your license every couple of years so it is

24:40

getting better are there any kind of like big things that you would love to see like if you were say you're in in charge or things

24:46

that have like really help you help like right now is there anything that kind of stands out yeah so I heard this one

24:53

Theory and I'm not 100 sure on it it's a little out there so uh I don't know if

24:59

you've heard of like harm reduction model there's uh some places in the world that that does uh they basically

25:04

it's in injection zones where you can go in then there will be registered nurses to inject heroin for you this reduces

25:12

overdoses it reduces HIV Transmissions all kinds of stuff but here in the U.S

25:17

like I just talked about suboxone being so restricted and I I was talking to a colleague and I said what if Suboxone

25:24

was just over the counter that would eliminate the street value of it because right now it does have a

25:29

street value that would completely eliminate the street value if somebody wanted to quit

25:34

heroin did just go down to their local pharmacy and buy it the the the the amount a person can get

25:42

high from Suboxone is next to nothing compared to a heroin it's it's it has a ceiling effect so you can take 10

25:48

Suboxones and you only get your body can only absorb two of them that's it can you just can you just educate us a

25:54

little bit better there on on the heroin Suboxone situation yeah so yeah as far as the treatment or the the absorption

26:02

all of it to be honest like you know somebody's on heroin and they've been moved to this like you know and yeah

26:09

yeah the whole street value thing's interesting as well in the limitations so yeah please heroin is a full opiate

26:15

Agonist meaning it lights up the entire opiate receptor which is called the MU receptor um now now the biggest complaint I

26:21

always got was you're just trading one drug for another uh with suboxone and I was like well that's not true Suboxone

26:28

is a partial partial opiate Agonist approximately lights up about 40 percent

26:34

of that opiate receptor so it covers the receptor so you're not in withdrawal it does help people with chronic pain

26:39

issues because that's a huge trigger for for drug use and then it doesn't get you high it doesn't release those High

26:47

endorphins and then you do become physically dependent on it because it is an opiate

26:53

so that's kind of the downside to it but it's for people because with people who

26:59

abuse heroin the first time they get so high the next time they get a little less high and then a little less High

27:04

you know you're always chasing that high that's kind of a phrase in addictions and eventually after about six months of

27:11

use you're no longer using heroin to get high you're using heroin just so to stay

27:16

on a withdrawal and that's where Suboxone comes in there's other treatments there's methadone and then

27:22

there's the Naltrexone I like Naltrexone a little better uh I like Suboxone the best for heroin Naltrexone and then

27:28

methadone methadone comes with a lot of side effects including like calcium depletion you end up losing your teeth

27:33

after long-term use it's it's kind of a hard drug but some people need it that's great I'm not going to judge them but

27:41

now if Suboxone was over the counter um so so uh why why does Suboxone have a

27:47

street value well not every like the the distribution of heroin isn't consistent

27:52

like Walmart is so you know if your heroin dealer runs out of heroin then

27:58

what well a lot of the times they'll have Suboxone they'll say hey I'm out of heroin but here's a suboxone to hold you

28:04

over until the new new shipment comes in so that way you're not in withdrawal wow so and I tell you what working in heroin

28:12

addiction probably 80 of my patients came to me and said I bought a street sub that's what they call it Suboxone on

28:19

the streets Street sub um and I thought man if this is what recovery looks like I think I can do it

28:26

so I'm like legally yes I'm opposed to people selling Suboxone but on a

28:32

practical level Street Illegal Suboxone sold on the street has brought so many people to recovery that it's like man is it really

28:39

a bad thing and so that's why I thought like at least consider the idea of making uh

28:46

because here in the states we have Sudafed you know for uh stuffy nose you have to swipe your driver's license to

28:52

get Sudafed because they count how many you have because they make meth out of it right why can't they do that with

28:57

with suboxone make it so you can buy it over the counter but you can only buy so many so that way

29:04

you're not selling them miss you because there's always going to be somebody misusing something so but for the most part Suboxone is pretty hard to abuse

29:12

um but yeah wow that's that was an awesome explanation thank you very much and I can only just assume how

29:18

complicated it is to on a federal level to you know take care of kind of all these states and take all those into

29:24

consideration like it must be absolutely wild but yeah it's um it seems complex

29:29

and it seems you know I just always think it's very interesting to ask people like yourself who are seeing the

29:35

you know who are seeing patients and seeing people seeing the interactions with the drugs and also seeing what's going on in the streets as well without

29:41

question your opinions and experiences so unbelievably valuable in regards to how do we you know

29:48

go further with regulations and restrictions so that was very insightful thank you very much

29:54

um in regards to addiction now in your opinion

29:59

why don't we see that addiction ourselves at first do you think how do

30:06

you think it goes from like casual casual beers after work or a

30:12

glass of wine after work to being that problem and why don't we why don't we why aren't we aware of it because I

30:18

don't think we I think we slip over into that like addiction problem right unconsciously and then it kind of just

30:24

happens and then we're just like in that place there's not really this space where we're contemplating whether we're

30:30

going into a bad bad area or not right uh so you with addiction with any addiction you have your physical

30:36

dependence and your psychological dependence right and and at what point does it become an addiction you know why

30:41

don't we realize that it's an addiction well it goes back to the definition of addiction uh doing something that's

30:48

harmful unable to consistently quit well a

30:53

person has to realize that it's harmful and at what point do you realize that drinking three three to six beers a

31:00

night is harmful to you well you don't really realize it because you're looking for the positive effects

31:06

and I've had a good uh like I said I do mostly alcohol and pornography addiction now at a good good uh

31:12

doing a podcast about pornography addiction and he's like what's wrong with pornography I watch pornography I'm

31:18

like okay well there are some objectively negative aspects to it and including like we talked about the

31:24

dopamine down regulation decreasing uh sexual expectations like increased

31:30

sexual expectations uh partner self-esteem is decreased and then get this in the in the United States

31:36

um pornography is the third leading cause of sex trafficking and I was like that's like some of the

31:42

people you've watched aren't willingly there how does that make you feel and of course in that podcast we change the

31:48

subject shortly after because it's kind of uncomfortable to talk about that uh so

31:53

um a person has to realize and especially with pornography like how is that harming me most people don't realize it I guess it's just for fun

31:59

right I don't realize it's harming you until you have uh your your spouse finds out

32:05

and your spouse's self-esteem is destroyed and then your marriage is in trouble or our partnership or whatever

32:11

you are and then or you're depressed you're depressed all the time and I can't figure out why

32:16

what's this dopamine down regulation because you're watching porn five times a week

32:21

so uh it's realizing and it goes back to why can't we realize we have to realize what's harming Us and how is it harming

32:28

us yeah that whole that whole pornography addiction thing is very interesting I remember the first

32:35

kind of chapters of dopamine Nation when she's the the author I come over her name but it's an incredible book

32:42

um describing the experience of one of her patients and you hear and that's

32:48

incredibly well with written book is so descriptive and it's just like you can kind of understand how something is

32:54

simple as just like starting to engage with pornography it can just spiral to

32:59

you know ruining your life your job and just it's just everything that you that you that you're thinking about

33:05

constantly it's absolutely incredible like that that yeah horrible the average

33:10

age of first exposure of pornography is 11 years old that's so disturbing it's really mind-blowing yes and that's 11

33:18

year olds you're not even capable to process some of these things and not only that it's not like when you and I

33:23

were young it was it was a Playboy magazine of a topless woman right well that's not the pornography that these 11

33:29

year olds are getting into now they have all kinds of Hardcore stuff and their brains just aren't capable and their

33:35

emotions aren't capable to process that and that's what leads to these addictions yeah it's wild I like

33:41

listening to Jordan Peterson talk about this type of topic because he speaks about how it's just absolutely ruining a generation of individuals and how how

33:48

can you possibly expect to engage with the opposite sex and like say a natural

33:53

normal organic way when this is your expectation of the you know physical act

33:59

of love it's very very it's very very interesting also just like just so

34:04

destructive it's unbelievable it's hard to think about and hard to talk about yeah yeah and that's that's a problem

34:10

right because yeah we'll we'll just sketch that to the side and just you know I don't know let's Society deal

34:15

with it but that's right even here on this podcast it's a little bit uncomfortable talking about right yeah yeah it's just disturbing in general

34:22

that so many so many children are just being um yeah a lot of a big part of

34:27

their life is being absolutely destroyed and it can be you know between that time of 11 and what like 18 19 20 how much of

34:34

your how much of the rest of your life is developed in that period of time and how much yeah it's wild we should we

34:40

could we could we should jump on and do a specific topic about that because teens you know with here at true hope

34:47

Canada we're really trying to figure out how we can access a lot of teams we're using micronutrients and nutrition to

34:53

support their bodies and brains to help help them get through difficult times but I think we should jump on and talk

34:59

about that another time because that's a big big topic and I'd love to just like really really focus up on that

35:04

um what do you think it looks like for an individual when they actually start to recognize an addiction

35:12

usually it's your loved ones who tells you um pornography it's your spouse who

35:17

catches you most of the time most people don't don't uh also I see a lot of religious people who who you know

35:24

secretly use pornography and they just had enough with it and they're like you know what I'm done I I can't I need help

35:30

um and with alcohol it's typically something happens it's your spouse is ready to leave you or

35:36

um you got in trouble at work or you're showing up late all the time hungover it's typically somebody who who cares

35:42

about you or somebody Outsider says hey this is a problem and a lot of times it takes that much for people to get it

35:49

yeah and it's really tricky because once somebody gets caught or gets to that point where it's just impossible to hot to to hide it they're so far gone that

35:58

it can be you know really difficult the idea of recovery or not having that in their life constantly is so so difficult

36:04

and um yeah it's it's interesting you know so I'm I'm a holistic nutritionist and

36:10

I've been practicing for many years and people aren't ready to change even just their diet or where they might shop

36:17

until something big happens whether they get a diagnosis whether they get serious pain whether a family you know whether a

36:23

family member like dies of something you know that's that that mass and I'm sure that's got neurochemical implications as

36:29

well because that huge difference yeah yeah that change is so difficult and we

36:34

need to um maybe working with the fact that the ability the brain has this incredible ability to create newer

36:40

Pathways and you know and and uncreate them as well but we're talking about on

36:46

undoing physical matter which is going to take time it's going to take patience it's going to take repetition and and

36:53

support and Community to be able to change those Pathways into you know into something different so yeah that and I

37:00

just wanted to ask you about like what are some of the like recommended common like first steps for those people who

37:05

who do want to who do want to change yeah so now most most people don't go

37:11

directly from I have a problem to let me go to an inpatient Addiction Center there's usually a couple of steps in

37:17

there now by all means that's that's possible that's that's reasonable if you want to do that but oftentimes uh it's

37:22

pretty expensive but uh 12 steps 12 steps is a good option obviously that

37:28

there's nothing out there that's going to be correct for everybody so I I um where I work as often is a an

37:34

alternative to AAA so a lot of pain band patients I get they're like I don't like AAA because of XYZ whatever that's fine

37:42

but um they even have uh 12 steps have just about everything they have Cocaine Anonymous they have Overeaters Anonymous

37:48

sex anonymous and it's a good first step to learn about addiction get on YouTube

37:53

there's a wealth of knowledge you can look at listen to a bunch of different TED Talks you can uh you can listen to

37:59

Harvard professors talk about addictions and all for free on YouTube right that's

38:04

it's an amazing experience obviously you need more support than that but uh I always say addiction isn't rocket

38:11

science we all know what to do it's like losing weight we know what to do you eat less you exercise right but it's so hard

38:17

to do with addictions you know what to do if you're if if you like alcohol too much

38:23

you cut off your access to alcohol get some support around you somebody who who can ask those hard questions how you

38:29

feeling are you having cravings what's going on when was your last drink all that stuff same thing with like pornography you have to have somebody

38:35

you can say hey how's that going yeah I know you had a problem with that tell me about it and you'll get internet

38:41

blockers all that stuff so um and and if uh and there is medication

38:46

uh medication can help medication assisted treatment is really uh um taken

38:52

off in the last 10 years so uh the 12-step program I like it I'm not going to hate on it but it has about a four

38:58

percent success rate over three years four four yes medication assisted treatment has

39:04

about a 50 success rate over those same three years so if if your life is is struggling and

39:12

and you know you're about to lose your job unless you use your marriage let's just go ahead and throw everything at it that we can get into therapy get into 12

39:20

steps consider medication and there's even medication for pornography addiction and that's kind of what I've

39:26

been doing for the last uh for the last year um but yeah that that's uh that's some

39:31

of the first steps that's cool how important is that like Community Based idea of therapy you know like you

39:38

know going to an AAA meeting with other individuals that are going through similar who are going through you know what have

39:44

commonalities with the substance I'm sure everyone's story is going to be going to be different but how important

39:50

is that a community Factor because I always think about you know depressions

39:55

anxieties addictions you know people isolate themselves you know they hide away and do these they be depressed on

40:01

their own they'd be anxious on their own and that we isolate ourselves and the last thing we want to do is

40:06

be involved with a group of people especially people we know and love and be vulnerable and open in that environment but when we go into an AAA

40:12

meetings which are obviously you know I've been going for a long time and they've got very experienced people running them how valuable is that Community aspect it's extremely valuable

40:19

and of course there's not one size fit off for anything some people just think their thing and that's okay I respect

40:24

that but imagine if it were you having say a problem with alcohol nobody sets

40:30

out to have a problem with any substance right so by the time they admit it they're kind of embarrassed right

40:36

disappointed in themselves so to go to a group therapy and say you know what I'm not alone there's other people out here

40:43

like me who are successful in all other areas of life except this one so I'm not

40:49

a complete failure I'm not the only one with this problem and most people have

40:54

success with group therapy for a limited time and at some point it's like it gets a little bit repetitive and it's like you

41:01

know this is more of a trigger for me than it is helping me and that's okay and take it while while it's helping you

41:06

just take it and go run with it yeah I can kind of understand that four percent I mean I think there's a vet there's a

41:12

lot of value in initially going and being with a group of individuals who

41:18

are going through something as you because it might you just might start to make you think a little bit different in regards to

41:24

just hating on yourself and beating up on your your own self and then there's obviously a stage beyond that which is

41:30

like you know okay how can I start clawing myself out of there that's going to be like different for everybody and I'm sure within those meetings it's very

41:37

difficult to be able to like you know personally create a protocol or a program or

41:42

individual support or therapy for that for that person specific needs and requirements and like want level so yeah

41:49

I can totally understand how that can be very very tricky but as you say there's there's other methods that people can use and there's just yeah there's a

41:55

wealth of knowledge online for people it's um it's certainly a very tricky complex

42:00

issue but it sounds like we're doing our best to um to tackle it I suppose and there's

42:07

always areas that we can we can improve on just to finish up I'd love to ask you

42:12

about Fentanyl and the the fentanyl epidemic just for

42:19

people who don't know anything really about that who have definitely heard of the word fentanyl can you maybe give us

42:24

like a like a brief breakdown of like what's happening with with that particular drug or medication

42:32

and then explain kind of like why that's been a big top talking point over the last few years yeah so fentanyl is a

42:39

medication used in medicine a lot especially for surgeries it's approximately a hundred times stronger

42:45

than morphine so we measure it out in micrograms I give it in the ER a lot it's given in surgeries a lot

42:51

um so people with chronic pain so it does have its medicinal uses and it's good it's good at what it does it's safe

42:57

uh when given it properly now what happened is now people who make the heroin uh

43:03

decided that they're going to start mixing fentanyl in with the heroin and so the heroin is about eight times

43:10

stronger than morphine and Fentanyl is about 100 times stronger than morphine so you can see how a person can overdose

43:16

fairly quickly when they don't know that it's in there and why why do they put it in there well fentanyl it hits harder so

43:24

it releases more dopamine more dopamine released the more addicted you are right I met with a handful of people who

43:31

uh you know as teenagers smoke marijuana and then when they try to quit they start going through withdrawals well why

43:38

because they laced it with fentanyl even marijuana nowadays are laces funnel I had one patient that said you know I got

43:45

your story how did you get started on heroin I had the best cocaine of my life and then I started getting sick so I I

43:51

had to keep getting it from this person found out it was likes with Heroin which and then the heroin started laced

43:57

with methanol so that's that the the strength of the fentanyl is really what

44:03

uh makes it so uh popular and and how cheap it is to make so it's cheaper and

44:09

stronger but it's also more deadly why is it more deadly what's happening in the body there that kills people so

44:15

it's just it's so morphine what it does is it slows you down it's it's a central nervous system depressants slows your

44:21

heart rate down slows your breathing down well you have something that's 100 times stronger than morphine that's going to slow your breathing down so

44:27

that's what happens is it slows your breathing down so much that your brain starts to lack oxygen you go to sleep then you don't wake up

44:34

wow interesting that was perfect thank you very much there's my little hook right there that snippet is fire thank

44:40

you so much um that was awesome I'd love to get you back onto show to talk about teens a

44:45

little bit more specifically such a valuable topic but how can people connect with you and learn more about

44:51

your work and and um and you've got to podcast yourself so please plug that and let us know about it well yeah I was

44:58

considering starting a podcast I don't have one yet but I was kind of considering about it but but uh so like I said I kind of specialize in

45:05

pornography addiction the last year so the noex.net n-o-x dot net and uh is

45:11

where where is my website you can go to our story and you can click a 10 minute uh book a 10 minute free session with

45:17

myself I'm going to just talk about treatments for pornography uh pornography use disorder

45:22

um or if you have any more questions and and we're also on a couple of Socials as well and I'll get those to you so you

45:28

can put them in in the tag in this podcast Isaiah thank you so much for chatting

45:34

with me today that was very very enlightening one of the one of the most educational episodes that I've done so I

45:41

could have you on for a few hours I think talking about all this stuff so yeah I really appreciate your time today thank you so much for coming on to to

45:47

True hope costs you're welcome thank you beautiful well that is it for today ladies and gentlemen for more

45:53

information about how you can connect with uh as I don't hesitate to check out the description I'll put connections

45:59

there to websites socials Etc don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet if you're listening on iTunes please

46:05

leave us a positive review or honest you know whatever you think and that's it thank you so much for listening this is

46:10

true hypocast the official podcast which I hope Canada we'll see you next week

46:16

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